Our anniversary

Today is our 12th anniversary. I wanted it to be special and besides, I was craving cake.
We did the Central Market thing again because you can say you are at the grocery store buying groceries and ready made stuff and still not really be cheating by eating out. Such logic! We bought prepared chicken parmigana and sweet potatoes and risotto cake and of course a piece of Italian cream cake. We had to microwave the food it the provided oven. We ate outside and listened to bagpipe players. Not a bad celebration of sorts. Probably spent around 20 bucks. Cheaper than going out to eat, but every bit as good if not better.

I guess if I had to pinpoint exactly what I am getting out of this is that, I am more aware of how spending used to be an outing or a hobby. Not really a necessity. We bought stuff just to fill in our time and have something to do...we rarely really needed the stuff we bought. I am so aware of all my unnecessary spending now. How many pairs of shoes do I really need? Now I look to free things to occupy our time. Reading, checked-out movies, walks. I don't really lack anything. I look through catalogs and I must admit that I would dearly love to buy something. It's never because I need it; it always because it just looks so darn cute. I wonder if that will leave me in time???

Does it count if you buy it at the grocery store?

I must admit we are doing very well in sticking with the plan. However, because we are now cooking at home and not eating out, we are buying more groceries. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I find that sometimes I will buy something at the grocery store just because I'm allowed. Well, the question is, "If it is processed at the grocery store, does that meet with the criteria of not going out to eat?" I bought some shrimp spring rolls. The are ready to eat. I did not have to cook and prepare. Is this just a way of going out to eat without going to a restaurant? Hmmm?

Costco hotdog?

So we went to Costco on Sunday morning and took advantage of all the free food samples. I thought it would make a complete lunch. I was still a bit hungry and suggested to Jeff that I would go out to the parking lot and eat the chips and hummus I was going to buy at Costco. He suggested we eat a Costco hotdog. Now to me that meant "eating out" and strictly forbidden. He somehow manage to justify it since dogs are only $1.50 with a drink included. I hemmed and hawed and he then said we could buy one and split it. I figured a $1.50 lunch did not mean "eating out" and so we bought one and shared and it hit the spot. I can't believe this made my blog and was actually an issue. Who knew?

Eat the avocado

Things are going great. No withdrawals from spending and going out to eat. My only complaint is that Jeff makes me feel bad about buying too much fresh fruit and vegetables. It's hard to gauge how much we are going to eat and I'm so not used to this...Anyway, he makes it a point to point out all the food that I should eat before it goes bad. Today, I had orders to eat the avocado that seemed like it was going bad. So I came home from lunch and made guacamole and it was very good. Jeff is saying that we should buy the majority of our fruits and vegetables in frozen form. I suppose...I told him I would limit it to maybe two fresh fruits and two fresh vegetables. Can we have peace again?

Good bye former life

We've decided to try not spending any money for 2009. That means that we will not buy anything at all unless it is for health. We are still setting up the ground rules. Because Jeff and I go out to eat way too much, we decided that it's back to the kitchen for us. We've reacquainted ourselves with the kitchen and have already made several nice dinners and we are quite pleased with ourselves. Our grocery bill looked kind of high, but that was to be expected cuz we had to start off with some food.

Our daughter, Nadia, took pity on us and invited us to her place for lunch tomorrow. That will seem like an outing for us. She did say to bring a salad so Jeff and I will prepare that happily together.

All seems good...so far. The one exception is that I was set to take two little garments to the cleaners today and Jeff reminded me that that was an area I should cut down on. Okay, so I won't wear fine silk blouses and angora sweaters for the whole 2009. He wondered if I just couldn't launder them myself and, of course, I can. The silk blouse is old, so if I ruin it, it had a good life. The sweater should be okay.

Ground rules: For now, we know that going out to eat is out. But I wondered about buying prepared foods. Seems we should cook it all from scratch. HMMM? Going out to eat was our identity. Who will we be without that?

Personal grooming: Jeff wants to continue to get haircuts and I said that I could go a year without cutting my hair. I have never done this and have no clue whether this is possible without scaring myself silly when I look in the mirror. But, if he is getting haircuts, then I should at least be able to buy hair dye. If I am not a grandmother (Nadia are you listening) then I don't want to look like one.

I have already bought 6 months of contact lenses, so it seems reasonable that I should be able to buy the solutions I need for that purpose, right? Well, Jeff protested that I could live very happily with glasses for the whole of 2009. I had to plead that my glasses are old and I would save buying new ones, if I could just have the lousy solutions.

It will be very interesting to see if we make it. We love to watch Longhorn basketball games, football games, etc. in a sports bar. Would we be able to get away with nursing an ice tea for an entire game at a sports bar? Should we even spend the few bucks for an ice tea. Since we don't have cable, we would have to watch games broadcasted on networks we get and listen to the rest on the radio. I suppose I could knit while I listen to a game on the radio.

Life as we know it is already changing. I'm hoping we will become very good at snatching good free entertainment whereever we can get it and decluttering the house will also be good. Not buying doodads and clothes that overstuff my closets will be nice. Who am I trying to convince?

The hardest thing will be vacations. We decided not to take any. Anyone who knows us, knows that we take at least 3 nice vacation every year. Sitting at home or just visiting venues in our area seems pretty lame but we can make them just as much fun as say, Paris. LOL! Stay tuned...